Passenger traffic at El Paso International Airport declined 6.1 percent last year — the sixth consecutive year of declines, data released this week show.

Freight traffic declined 6.5 percent last year after three years of fairly strong numbers.

The declines reduced some airport revenues, but the airport hasn't had to delay capital improvement projects or reduce customer service items because it gets about 65 percent of its revenues from non-aviation sources, including leases on airport land for hotels and industrial buildings, said Monica Lombraña, the airport's director of aviation.

REPORTER

Vic Kolenc

The airport doesn't make a profit on landing fees, which are designed through airline agreements to cover airfield costs, she said. Airlines make up for airfield-cost deficits and the airport refunds excess landing fee revenues to the airlines, Lombraña reported.

A big airport project is slated to begin this year: Construction of a $45 million, three-story car-rental facility. A ground-breaking ceremony is set for May 29.

"Passenger traffic has declined since 2007" mostly because airlines have reduced flights nationwide in the past several years due to the 2008 recession and other factors, Lombraña said.

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"We have to acknowledge the fact we are in a different era, and see what we can do," she said.

The airport is keeping operating costs down to keep airline fees down, she said. And last year, the airport beefed up its airline recruitment incentives in hopes of adding more flights, especially non-stop flights in the future to key cities, especially Washington, D.C., and Mexico City, she said.

Last year, 2.71 million passengers used the airport - almost 176,000 fewer than in 2012. The airport was used by 20 percent fewer passengers last year than in pre-recession 2007, when passenger traffic peaked at 3.4 million.

It handled 88,379 tons of freight in 2013 - 6,145 tons fewer than in 2012. Freight tonnage was above 90,000 tons each year since 2010.

Companies may be relying more on rail and truck shipments, which may be one reason for the freight decline, Lombraña said.

An economic forecast issued late last year by the University of Texas at El Paso's Department of Economics and Finance blamed a poor national economy in 2013 for declines in freight and mail shipments at the airport. However, the UTEP forecast predicted that expanded trade and commerce should increase air cargo shipments more than 2 percent this year and 4 percent in 2015.

It projects passenger traffic will increase less than one-half of one percent this year, and just over one-half of one percent in 2015.

"Economic growth in 2014 should be strong enough to outweigh the effects of projected fare increases and allow at least marginal growth in 2014 and 2015," UTEP forecasters concluded in the "Borderplex Economic Outlook: 2013-2015." "Structural changes, such as electronic distance meeting software, will likely prevent traffic from expanding very rapidly in coming years."

Lombraña said the airport's own projections indicate passenger traffic should remain relatively flat this year.

However, a federal law expiring in October that will lift years-old flight restrictions from Southwest Airlines' Love Field hub in Dallas could possibly reduce Southwest flights at El Paso, she said. That's because Southwest will no longer be required to have long-haul flights make stops in El Paso and other regional cities before going to their final destinations. That was designed to protect Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

Southwest had almost 52 percent of flights last year at the El Paso airport. It has 25 non-stop flights daily to seven regional cities, an airline fact sheet shows.

"We could lose flights that don't have to stop here anymore," Lombraña said. But it's not yet known what Southwest will do, she said.